Stepmother's Surprise
by HSGisME123
Summary: It's been four years since Sarah left the Labyrinth, but this time it's not her turn to wish something away. Who would have guessed a mother and daughter could bond without being in the same room?
1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl whose stepmother ALWAYS made her stay home with the baby. She'd made a dumb mistake once, but she would NEVER do it again. The baby grew up, as did the girl, and she learned, maybe little brothers aren't so bad. She gave him good taste, in movies, clothes, music, art, everything. And a good imagination, to boot. What she didn't know is that the King of the Goblins still loved her, and an owl always watched for the next slip-up.

It wasn't the girl who would make the slip up, though. No, it was the stepmother.

The girl was being your average teenager, not wanting to do her chores.

"Sarah, would you please take out the trash?" The girl was firmly planted on the couch watching some nice, mind-numbing television.

"I'll get it in a minute," she said.

"You said that an hour ago."

"I'LL GET IT!"

"DON'T RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME, YOUNG LADY!" the stepmother shouted back. This made the girl jump out of her seat, groan, and shuffle to the trash.

The stepmother muttered under her breath "I wish someone would teach you some respect."

In an instant, Sarah was no longer in the house, nor on the property at all. The trash was taken out, but it was like Sarah had never been. This frightened the stepmother.

The stepmother paced in worry, muttering to herself things like "what will my husband say?" "What will the POLICE say" "WHAT WILL CHILD SERVICES SAY?!"

"They won't say anything," came a smooth voice from a nearby window. "Not if you can win your daughter back."

The stepmother turned and her jaw dropped. In front of her was a man with long, blonde, poofy, flowing hair, and the sparkliest getup known to mankind. He smirked, showing his handsomely crooked teeth, and his mismatched eyes glimmered.

"I've met your daughter before, but that's a different story," he said as he paced the room. "Let me introduce myself. I am Jareth, the Goblin King."

"I-I'm Karen Williams," the stepmother stuttered out.

"Yes, I know. But right now there is the issue of your stepdaughter. She is safe, for the time being. But should you want her back, you'll have to face a little _challenge_."

"What kind of challenge?" Karen asked.

The goblin king chuckled and moved to mere inches from her face. "You'll have to solve my Labyrinth." Just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was yards away from her again. "Get to the center and defeat me within thirteen hours, and you can have your daughter back. Fail, and the girl remains with me, _forever_."

No longer was Karen in the living room. She was standing outside a stone wall at least twenty feet high, surrounded by dirt and glitter. There was a door, and nothing else in sight for miles. Even the Goblin King had vanished.

She put on a stern face and pushed the door open. "I'm coming, Sarah."


	2. Chapter 2

In the Goblin King's throne-room was where Sarah found herself, still holding the bag of trash that she was reluctantly taking out. It took her a few seconds to recognize where she was before she dropped the trash at her feet with a "what the-"

"Find anything unusual, Sarah?" the Goblin King said from behind. Sarah turned and glared at him. Yes, she had grown up _slightly_ from her childish ways, but by no means had she forgiven him for putting her through such a terrifying ordeal. But, she didn't want to be rude. She wanted answers.

"Why the heck am I back here? I didn't wish for anything."

"How conceited to think that I only grant _your_ wishes," he told her as he poofed up a crystal. He blew on it and the sphere floated towards her, and transformed into a comfy looking chair with a flick of his hand. Sarah unceremoniously flopped onto the chair.

"Your stepmother wished you away," he said bluntly. This threw Sarah into a mental rage.

"OF ALL THE-"

"WITH! Good intentions, Sarah," he explained, calming her storm before it could really start, or at least bring her from boiling to steaming. He quietly gestured for Sarah to take a deep breath before he continued. "In her words, she said 'I wish you would learn some respect,' and quite frankly, I'd agree with her, but her choice of words was poor."

Sarah did indeed take that deep breath, reducing her steam to a residual heat. "Explain," she beckoned.

"All adults," he elaborated, "believe that teenagers have no respect." Sarah glared at the thought of being compared to _other_ teenagers. "In reality, teenagers are testing their boundaries. They're trying to see how much freedom they _really_ have. The words that _I_ would have used would have been 'I wish you would take me more seriously, have a keener sense of responsibility, and understand that I am not your enemy.'"

Sarah was slightly dumbstruck. "I'm not like other-"

"Every teenager says that." Without any ado, the Goblin King started to fade away.

"Time to explain the rules to dear old Mummy."


	3. Chapter 3

Karen traversed the Labyrinth. Maybe not quite as nimbly as her stepdaughter did years ago, but not too shabby for a person of her age in heels, which she took off halfway through the initial section. She only discovered that the wall wasn't there by trying to lean against it and nearly falling flat on her ass. She could have sworn she heard someone say "don't go that way" but she did anyway. She figured she couldn't take anything for granted, not even instructions coming from what she assumed was her imagination.

Soon she was in a section with a completely different layout. Rather than a stone maze, she found herself in a forested area. Carefully, she made her way through the trees, always with the feeling that something was watching her. She checked her watch to see how much time she had left, only to find it stopped working, the second hand remained still.

"Checking the time will waste it away," came the Goblin King's voice from overhead. The King himself was not there, it was just his voice echoing through the trees.

Karen stamped her foot, a motherly retort ready, if it wasn't for the fact that there was a pebble right where she stamped, and it pricked and embedded itself into her foot. Angrily, she removed it, forgetting what she was going to say in the process, and continued down her chosen path. She could have sworn she heard chuckling, but she decided to ignore it.

This time she took off down the path running.

"Don't worry, honey," she said, certain that Sarah was frightened by now. "I'm on my way."


	4. Chapter 4

Sarah was frightened. Not of the Goblin King, or anything in the Labyrinth, really. No, her fear was in the fact that Jareth had a sock puppet replica of Karen on his hand, along with sock puppets to represent her and the rest of her family sitting idly on the throne.

"While the Labyrinth itself is meant to be a sort of 'emergency teaching tool', designed to put you in situations where you are forced to learn necessary lessons about life, sometimes you can learn things with... simpler methods," he explained as he waved his puppeted hand in front of her.

Sarah wasn't sure if she should fear for his sanity or laugh.

"Hello, Sarah. I'm your mother!" he said in the most obnoxious falsetto voice a man can muster.

Sarah just stared at the puppet, having no idea what he was trying to get her to do. Jareth half-frowned, half-pouted at her.

"It doesn't work if you don't play along, Sarah." He didn't realize that her theatre classes in high school didn't prepare her for... whatever this is.

"Um... hello, _mother,_ " Sarah said, failing entirely at keeping a straight face. She thought to herself about practicing this in front of a mirror for future use in comedic performances.

"Sarah," the sock puppet said, still with the obnoxious falsetto. "Why don't you and I have some nice mother/daughter _bonding_? We could go see a movie, do our nails, get makeovers, do our hair-"

At this point Sarah couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing at the Goblin King and his idea of the sock puppets.

"I'm sorry, but I can't take you seriously like this!"

Jareth remained calm and collected, and answered quite simply.

"If you can't take _me_ seriously, think about your mother."

Sarah stopped laughing and began to think. He did have a point. Sarah still had trouble viewing Karen as a serious parental figure, especially considering that she still tried to keep in contact with her birth mother as much as she could. She couldn't even imagine how Karen must have felt about Sarah not seeing her as a mother.

"Let's try this again, shall we?"


	5. Chapter 5

Karen tripped over what she hoped was the last piece of tree branches and rocks for the two-hundred and ninety-seventh time. She was about to kick another one out of the way until she remembered that she had no shoes on. She kept on traversing the terrain diligently, determined to win her stepdaughter back.

She finally reached what she thought was a clearing, and was horrified at what she saw. Trash and piles of rubbish, as far as the eye could see. But it didn't smell like usual waste. There was a glimmer of hope, though. Just past the trash was a large gate, and beyond it was a city, and then the castle.

Karen carefully made her way downwards to the wastes. Some parts looked like they moved, but she tried to ignore them and continue onto her designated path. The amount of trash astounded her, particularly because exactly zero percent of it was food trash or disposable waste. All of it was things like toys and furniture and clothing.

Just as she was about to make it to the next section, she stopped. She saw something out of the corner of her eye that she recognized. She looked at it closely. It was a small, well-played with stuffed rabbit. It looked exactly like the one she had when she was a little girl, about Sarah's age. A small tear dropped from her eye as she remembered promising herself that she would never part with it for the rest of her life. Oh, how devastated she was when one day she came home from school and the rabbit was missing.

And then in her peripheral vision again, there was another item she remembered. A small compact for makeup, probably from when she first started using it. She stared at the swirls of gold patterns that adorned the brown case, and remembered hiding it from her parents, who didn't want her to use makeup until she was in high school. She managed to get away with the foundation in the compact as an excuse to cover acne.

Suddenly everything began to remind her of her childhood. Karen wanted to jump into the pile and relish in the memories forever, never letting go again. But something tugged at the back of her mind. Something, no, some _one_ needed her desperately. It hit her like a brick.

Sarah.

Karen dropped the memories she had, knowing that she didn't need physical reminders to keep them dear, and rushed to the gates to get Sarah back.


	6. Chapter 6

Sarah had given in completely to temptation. There was no turning back at this point. She could never undo what she had done. Quite frankly, Sarah would never see herself the same way again, and neither would Jareth.

She had the sock puppets of her and of Toby on her hands now. Jareth had the ones of Karen and Sarah's father on his hands. Sarah had become much better at keeping a straight face at this point, and was even taking this exercise seriously.

"Sarah," the Daddy puppet said with an over-the-top deep voice. "Would you please watch Toby for the evening while Mummy and I go out to town?"

"Why can't we go with you?" the Sarah puppet asked. "You two always go off alone and leave me and Toby here by ourselves. It's not-" she caught herself. She knew better than to say _those_ words in front of Jareth. "It's not right."

"Sarah," the Mommy puppet said, "You know how much our time alone means to us, but sometimes it's so hard to get."

Sarah gave a look to the puppet that screamed that she didn't believe them. She took a deep breath and gave a loud sigh, and continued.

"Just once, I would like to be able to spend an evening by myself as well," Sarah said. "Why don't you take Toby with you?"

"And leave you here by yourself, young lady?" said the Daddy puppet. "Out of the question. Who knows what you might do."

"I'm a responsible young adult!" Sarah objected, jumping up from her chair and pulling the puppets down. "As if I would trash the house and throw a wild party and invite boys."

Jareth raised his hands to stop Sarah. He apparently forgot that the puppets were still on his hands, giving Sarah something to still be angry at. With a frustrated growl, she snatched the puppets off his hands and threw them to the floor, and angrily fell back into her chair.

"I think I see the issue, here," Jareth said as Sarah turned her head into the back of the chair.

"Enlighten me," Sarah said, still angry at everything, except the chair.

"You don't think your parents trust you." Silently, Jareth drew a crystal, and began to search his memories of watching Sarah grow up into a young woman. Patiently he waited until he finally found the memory he was looking for.

"Look, Sarah," Jareth beckoned as he handed her the crystal. Reluctantly she took it, without ever turning her head to face him.

The image in the crystal was fuzzy around the edges, but was otherwise clear. It was a picture from about two years ago of her talking with Karen.

"Sarah, would you mind babysitting tonight? Your father will be home late and I've been called to an emergency board meeting. I've left pizza money on the counter, if you like, but keep in mind that there _are_ leftovers in the fridge."

"Yeah, sure, Karen. I understand."

"Thank you, Sarah."

The visuals stopped and the crystal faded away entirely, though it still felt like it was in Sarah's hands. She didn't want to turn around to face Jareth again, and he understood that. Even an immortal remembers what it was like to be a teenager.

"It's not that they don't trust you," he explained. "It's that they want to make sure you're responsible enough to handle things first."


	7. Chapter 7

Karen finally made it through the goblin city. She had expected an all-out frontal assault, but was quite shocked when the only opposition she met was a cat and a particularly defensive chicken. But when she made it to the entry of the castle, she understood why.

Sitting in front of the door was a massive sphinx, large enough that it blocked the entire doorway. It glared at Karen, analyzing her with a single glance, and then it spoke.

"I am not the last challenge you will face here," it said. "But should you wish to proceed, you must solve my riddle."

Karen mentally prepared herself for this, ready for anything it might throw at her. The sphinx dropped its head down to her level. Its head was as tall as she was. Karen gulped.

"What comes at night without being called, and disappears in the morning without being stolen?"

Karen's mind raced with all sorts of things of the night. It might have been dreams, but no, it couldn't be. Some people sleep in the day, and plenty of people have daydreams. It could have been the moon, but everyone has seen the moon during the day. It's revolution around the earth wasn't constant in that sense, and it didn't always appear, such as on a new moon. No, there was only one right answer.

"Is it the stars?" she asked tentatively.

"You must be firm with your answer," the sphinx said. "Never wavering. I will not accept a question for an answer."

Karen planted her bare feet firmly on the ground. "It is the stars." The sphinx nodded and stepped aside for Karen to enter.


	8. Chapter 8

Karen rushed into the throne room, expecting to have to fight Jareth for Sarah's freedom. But when she arrived, there was nothing there. The throne room was empty, and the only other room was beyond a set of stairs. It was the only choice, and she took it.

Karen exited the stairs to find a room full of them. It looked like one of those optical illusion paintings that Sarah kept in her bedroom. It was dizzying.

Karen looked around for any sign of the Goblin King, or of Sarah. Thankfully, she found the latter, and she began to climb one of the stairs to reach her. However, Sarah ran the opposite direction.

"Sarah!" Karen called out, thinking maybe Sarah didn't see her. Sarah didn't even look back, like she didn't hear her either.

For grueling minutes upon minutes, Karen chased after Sarah on the staircases. A few times, Sarah acknowledged Karen's presence, but continued to run, as if she was testing her for something. What more did Karen have to prove? But finally, she and Sarah were on the same plane.

"Sarah, please!" she called out. Sarah finally stopped and turned around. "Please," Karen said once more, extending her hand to Sarah. "Let's go home."

Sarah didn't take Karen's hand. Instead, she clapped teasingly slowly as the young woman morphed into the Goblin King and gave a mocking smirk.

"Good, good," he said. "You made it through, and even managed to catch me." He gave a slight chuckle and gestured to a pillar. Karen hadn't even noticed that the landscape had changed so drastically. Now it was like the room had fallen apart, pieces of a puzzle just suspended in space.

From behind the pillar came Sarah, who ran to Karen and openly accepted her embrace. The affection was so unusual that Karen had no idea how to respond, except by tenderly holding her stepdaughter.

"Sarah was watching that whole ordeal," Jareth explained. "You've proven that you will never give up on her," he said a smile that said "I told you so."

"Of course I wouldn't," Karen said beaming, tears beginning to run down her face. "Would you do anything less for your own family?"

Jareth nodded, and soon everything was gone. They were back in the living room, still hugging. Karen gently stroked Sarah's hair, and Sarah looked up at her stepmother with a newly found respect.

"You'll have to tell me how you know that man, sometime."

Sarah broke the embrace and invited Karen to join her on the couch. "No time like the present," she said.

… "You did WHAT?!"


End file.
